Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of previously unseen photos, this is the first history of the destroyers of the Cold War Soviet Navy, the heart of its surface fleet.

With 11 classes and hundreds of units built, and with roles varying from nuclear strikes on NATO shipping to anti-aircraft and anti-submarine warfare, the destroyers of the Soviet Union were among the most numerous and important assets to the surface fleet. After Soviet shipbuilding overcame its severe postwar problems, the traditional destroyers of the early Cold War were replaced over the decades by increasingly capable guided-missile ships. However unlike their NATO counterparts, the details of these warships remain practically unknown in the West.

In this book, Jan Radziemski, a naval historian and authority on the Soviet Navy, presents the first history in English on the fleet’s Cold War destroyers, concisely assessing each class's development and construction, its roles, technology, weaponry, sensors and seakeeping. He also draws upon his extensive photo collection to present more than 400 superb photos, illustrating all the classes and subclasses from Project 30 to the final Sovremennyj-class.

Complete with data tables on the destroyer classes, the individual ships, and the capabilities of weaponry, this is the essential guide to the Soviet fleet's Cold War stalwarts.